Aadhaar recognizes 1,600 more transgender persons

This is an ongoing update of Aadhaar and UID. In that in October of 2011 there had already been over 12,500 issued as transgender to various communities around the India. Life is a daily struggle for transgender and Hijras through out the world but especially in India which makes the foresight of the UID team to include such a classification as even more important. The social stigma associated with their identity is takes a toll on their physical and mental health. For the first time they were being acknowledged along with receiving a statutory identity proof that will help in securing basic needs of life. The delivery of Aadhaar numbers started to be a realization for this community in Guntur city.

They are often spurned by the officials concerned/staff who simply say that Aadhaar cards cannot be issued to them on technical grounds in spite of their fulfilling eligibility criteria. Then the usual insults are heaped on them. Sometimes their applications are taken but to no avail, all because of the familiar societal mindset of looking down upon them. Not willing to bear this disdainful treatment anymore, some 30 members of the transgender community in living in Guntur city (KVP Colony, Gujjanagundla and other localities) approached the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) Secretary M.V. Ramana Kumari and Superintendent of Police (urban) A. Ravi Krishna, who got them successfully enrolled into the UIDAI database. Ms. Ramana Kumari made the transgender people to submit a petition to Collector S. Suresh Kumar, which set the ball rolling. Mr. Ravi Krishna spoke to the officials concerned of Revenue Department and got the address of a single house in KVP Colony in which the nearly 30 transgenders are staying, submitted as proof of their residence.